Gomberg also warned that Californians can't allow themselves to be distracted by the hype of a coming El Nino weather pattern.

He said an El Nino doesn't guarantee a wet winter for California and urged people to keep saving water.

"We need to continue the conservation efforts," he said. "People need to keep on doing what they've been doing."

The state reported savings of 27 percent in June and 31 percent in July.

The board also is expected to release figures for August showing how each community is performing. The mandate by Brown gave each city an individual conservation target based on water use in the same month of 2013, the year before Brown declared a drought emergency.

Some of the state's largest cities contacted independently reported meeting their mandates.